Re: Dean Kenyon (was Darwinist Macro-Evolution)

Thomas L Moore (mooret@GAS.UUG.Arizona.EDU)
Wed, 7 Feb 1996 18:59:58 -0700 (MST)

On Wed, 7 Feb 1996, Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:

> I have just been catching up on my mail after a couple of weeks of absence,
> and was able to read all the stuff on Kenyon at one sitting. I was appalled
> that nobody has yet established what Kenyon was teaching. I heard hearsay,
> and speculation and second hand reports. Why doesn't someone ask Kenyon
> what he was teaching? You guys remind me of a bunch of philosophers trying
> to determine the number of teeth in a horses mouth while the horse is
> standing nearby probably more than willing to bare its teeth! He has an
> email address.

Just to be devil's advocate: how do we know he'll tell us the truth? I'm
sure he'd been willing to tell us something, maybe he'd be 100% honest,
maybe not. The only way to get a real hold on what he said is to see the
complaints of the students and how he answered those complaints before
the board. Even then, you still can only get a general idea. Asking
Kenyon questions without finding out what the complaints directly were
doesn't help answer the questions we have. On the other hand, maybe he
does have access to the documents in question and maybe he can send them
all to one or all of us. Would he do that? If he said yes, would he
send them all? Better go through the university in question and see if
the documention is available.

Although we don't exactly know what he taught in class, we _can_ discuss
whether the supposed issues are okay for the class in question. I think
this ends up to be the real issue of this whole discussion anyway, not
whether Kenyon should have been removed from teaching his class. I think
this a good discussion point for the reflector. As far as I'm concerned,
Kenyon's past problems are settled, but not the underlying issues.

Tom